THE HARRY POTTER CRAZE

By Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, July 30 (ANTARA) - The Harry Potter craze seems  to have also hit Indonesian movie fans as evident from the long queues  seen at theaters' ticket counters days before last Friday's Indonesian premiere of  "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows."     People were willing to stand in line for hours just to buy  a ticket for the show, and later could consider themselves lucky if they  has gotten one as no small number of others went home disappointed because  tickets at all theaters were sold out even  two days before Friday.          While the Harry Potter spectators' explosion could have been caused by the fact that they had long missed box office films at Indonesian movies, the high interest of moviegoers could also be related to the success of the story on the boy wizard which had raked  up a record of US$476 million in ticket sales world-wide.          The final Harry Potter film shattered box office records worldwide with a whopping US$168.6 million in US and Canadian ticket sales over the opening weekend and nearly U$476 million globally.          After stopping the screening of  box office films for a long time, the Theater 21 movie network began on Friday to entertain  audiences with  "Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2."     Theater 21 Operations Director Jimmy Harianto said the Harry Potter Part 2 film was shown simultaneously at 40 Theater 21 movie houses across the country.         He hoped that the reentry into the country of foreign films would have a positive impact on the creative industry in Indonesia, particularly on the film industry  as it would provide inspirations for film stakeholders to create better products.          The high interest of Indonesian Harry Potter lovers is reflected in the sales of tickets at a number of movies in Jakarta and other cities where tickets were  already sold out even two days before the show.          Manager of Kelapa Gading XXI theater in North Jakarta, Dasuki, said that tickets for Friday's screening were sold out one day before the show so that moviegoers who wanted to watch the film had to wait for another two days.         The Kelapa Gading XXI cineplex showed Harry Potter simultaneously at its six studios. The same thing also happened with the Epicentrum, all of its theaters put Harry Potter on their screens.          Somali, manager of Epicentrum in Kuningan Central Jakarta, said his movies would screen Harry Potter for several days ahead and tickets had been sold up.         The condition also was experienced by EX XXI theater, Tickets were ordered by institutions and companies which hired one of its theaters for watching latest Harry Potter's sequel collectively.          EX XXI manager Rohadi said a number of institutions and business groups had hired one of its theaters for a joint watch of Harry Potter 2. "They have ordered it long before," he said.          In a number of theaters in Jakarta, one could see long queues of moviegoers who wanted to watch the ability of the boy wizard to vanquish the dark knight and a band of pirates. Spectators did not mind at all to stand in queue because they had been waiting for the film since long.          "There is no problem even if I have to queue and wait for hours. I am now in queue for a ticket but for watching the film tomorrow," Lia, one of the moviegoers who had snaked down before the ticket counter, said.          She said the long queue had happened because movie lovers had been longed for Hollywood films.          Operators of Theater 21 movie networks in Bandung, West Java, also put on their screens the latest sequel, Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows Part 2. "Of the four studios of our BTC XXI, four showed Harry Potter," Public Relations BTC Fashion Mall R Lupiana Sekarwati said on Thursday.          Luppi said BTC XXI played Harry Potter on the screens of four of its studios to cater the explosion of spectators. "We have predicted that the audience of Harry Potter would explode so that we are preparing four studios all at once to serve our audiences," said Luppi.          She said that the film which was based on a J.K. Rowling's fiction novel was played every hour at four of BTC XXI studios. "The film screening begins at 12.00 and is played at each hour," she said.          Operator of Empire 21, one of the Theater 21's Bandung Indah Plaza (BIP) theaters, also did the same thing. "Of the six studios we have, four are playing Harry Potter, two are showing national films," Marketing Communication Manager of Bandung Indah Plaza Tubagus Feisal Yusuf said.          Tubagus said that although Harry Potter and The Deathly Hallows-Part 2 began to be screened on Friday yet the spectators had hunted the tickets since Wednesday.          "We open the window for ticket sales before the film is played because on-lookers had packed the ticket window of Empire 21," said Tubagus Feisal Yusuf.          Long queues for tickets are also seen at a number of theaters in Semarang, Central Java. Movie goers who stood in queues were dominated by young spectators.          Public Relation (PR) Executive of Entertainment Plaza Semarang, Anggita Setia Dara said that on Friday the queues of ticket hunters had snaked down hours before the windows were opened at 12 a.m.          "At E Plaza Semarang theater we have four film screening schedules, namely at 1.00 p.m, 3.00 p.m, 6.00 p.m, and at 8.45 p.m so that we open the ticket counter  12.00 a.m but many come several hours earlier," she said.          She said Theater E Plaza had three studios with a total  capacity of 369 seats. Two studios are for Harry Potter and one for Blitz film.          She said that her theater prepared 1,000 tickets a day for the screening of Harry Potter and the seats were always fully booked.***5*** (T.A014/A/HAJM/15:05/a014) 30-07-2011 15:25:1